Lost Highway (5 page)

Odessa

Q
uill doesn’t offer his bedroom
for the night. He doesn’t even seem to consider I might want to sleep. We sit
in the living room, long past sundown. He says nothing. Not even when he stands
to lock down the house. I see how he removes my suitcase and bag from the room
before locking it again. When he sits in the chair, Quill returns to staring at
me.

I take the TV remote and click
through channel after channel of static. After Quill secures the cabin, I
finally land on a visible episode of
Tom & Jerry
, but the signal
goes out after a few minutes.

“You’ll need to get accustomed
to fewer comforts now that you’re in the Lost Highway.”

Focusing on his face shrouded
in darkness, I ask, “Do you miss your old life?”

“No.”

Finding the static soothing, I
leave on the TV. I relax on the couch and watch Quill. He seems otherworldly in
the dark room with the flickering light dancing on his face.

“Are you ever scared here?”

“No.”

“Were you ever scared in your
old life?”

Quill doesn’t answer. His
menacing gaze bothers me, but I won’t look away. Nothing in this cabin is as reassuring
as looking at him.

“What would you be doing if I
hadn’t come here?”

“What I’m doing right now.”

“Staring at the couch?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very interesting.” When
Quill doesn’t react, I squirm lower under the blanket. “This is more
comfortable than the mattress in the other room.”

Quill says nothing for the
longest time, but the silence isn’t so bad when he’s around versus when I’m
alone.

“You haven’t asked for food,”
he finally says.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Hunger isn’t a problem in the
Lost Highway. Eating is a choice here.”

“Yet the Death Dealers
cannibalize.”

“Eating humans is a strong
taboo. Killing and consuming fellow human beings is as primal as one can
become.”

“Have you eaten anyone?”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to go primal?”

“No.”

“Do the other Death Dealers
think you’re a goody-two-shoes for not eating them?”

Quill doesn’t respond, but I
laugh quietly at the thought of peer pressure between killers. My humor fades
as my thoughts return to what Quill insists on calling a closet. The voices
still echo in my mind, and I know they’re waiting for me downstairs.

“I’m going to sleep now,” I
say, shivering under the thick blanket.

My gaze notices the bandage
Quill wrapped around my leg. I haven’t felt the pain in hours.

“Are you going to bed?” I ask
him after my eyelids grow heavy.

“No.”

“Will you be here when I wake
up?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

In the dark room, I can’t read
his expression. I only know he says he’ll stay with me tonight, and I believe
him. Quill is scary and emotionless, but I believe he’s also the best and
sanest Death Dealer in the Lost Highway.

Quill

O
dessa sleeps for hours on the
living room couch. Using only the TV lighting, I memorize every curve of her
delicate face. She opens her eyes just after the dull sunlight illuminates the
room. I don’t look away when her gaze finds mine. Odessa frowns at me, but I
refuse to bow to her will. If she doesn’t want me to look at her face, she can
cover herself with the blanket.

“Did you sleep at all?” she
asks, sitting up.

“I don’t need to sleep.”

“Did you at least get to recharge
your batteries?”

I don’t react, but Odessa grins
at her snide remark. She’s quite pleased with herself when she stands up.

“What now?” she asks.

I remain in my chair a bit
longer, forcing her to wait. Once I finally get to my feet, she smiles as if
she’s won.

“We should look at repairing
your room. There’s no telling how long we’ll have access to the outside of the
cabin.”

“Okay,” she says, following me
down the hall.

I unlock the bolt on her room
and swing open the door. Behind me, Odessa gasps and backs away.

The room is splashed with a
reddish green liquid. As I step through the door, Odessa grabs my arm.

“Don’t go in,” she whispers.
“Just close and lock the door.”

“It’s clearly gone,” I say,
wrenching my arm free. “There’s nowhere for it to hide in here.”

“It could be in the hole.”

I walk to the gaping exit in
the wall and lean down to look inside. “It’s empty.”

“What was it?”

“A nocturnal creature I’ve
never seen before.”

“I’m not sleeping in here
again.”

“I’ll block the exit.”

“I’m still not sleeping in
here.”

I find Odessa with her arms
crossed and a defiant expression in her green eyes. When I step closer, she
flinches, and I smile at her fear.

“You cannot have my room,” I
tell her.

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No.”

“I don’t want to sleep where
Tom kept his victims.”

“I don’t care what you want.”

Odessa studies me. Though
afraid, she refuses to back down this time.

“This is a female trick to
convince me to give you my room and have me take the couch.”

“Yes, my flatly stating I will
not sleep in that room is part of my devious plan. You’re very astute when it
comes to the female mind.”

“I can’t sleep on the couch.
It’s too short, and I’m too tall.”

“I don’t want your bed. It’s Tom’s
old bed, and I don’t want to sleep where he slept. I’ll take the couch.”

“You’re lucky to have a place
to sleep. I hear some Death Dealers keep their cattle hanging from the
ceiling.”

“Cattle?”

“Trophies, cattle, dolls, meat.
Each Death Dealer has their own term.”

“What’s yours?”

“Complication.”

“Since I’m a Death Dealer, what
shall I call my companion? Oh, I know, you’re the tallest, darkest, and most
handsome robot in all of creation.”

“Mine is catchier,” I say,
surprising myself with a hint of a smile.

In the room, the blood left
behind doesn’t smell human. The pungent odor reminds me of rotting flesh. The
creature explored every inch of the room. I even spot goop on the ceiling.
Did
it crawl up there?

“It smells like my
grandmother’s stew,” Odessa says from the doorway.

I like how she won’t enter.
Timid is preferable to blind courage. Mary became fearless before she finally
snapped. I recall how she stood in the fading light and dared the wolves to
take her.

Odessa watches me move around
the room. Every time I glance back, I find her studying me rather than the
mess. Her expression is relaxed until I hold her gaze. I can’t read the new
emotion in her eyes. I only know it puts me on edge.

“What?” I ask when she won’t
look away.

“I was thinking that of all the
faces I could be looking at while stuck in hell, yours ain’t so bad.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re an attractive man,
Quill. Did they not tell you that during your robot training?”

“Stop calling me a robot.”

“Stop acting like one.”

I storm toward the door,
sensing Odessa might consider locking me inside. She only hurries away until
her back is against the wall.

“You don’t understand what
awaits you if my hospitality ends.”

“Suffering, torture, death. Am
I close?”

When she doesn't look away, I
wrap my hand around her throat. “You should never make extended eye contact
with a predator,” I say, pressing my body against hers. “Most won’t allow you
to live the way I do.”

Odessa stares up at me, and I
relish the fear in her eyes. From the corner of my vision, I notice her hand
moving upward. Once again, she prepares to break the one rule I’ve set down
since the very beginning.

Her fingers slide over my
cheekbone before returning to her side. “Eyelash,” she casually says.

Grunting at her inability to
keep her hands to herself, I shut and lock the door. “I need to fix the hole
before the sun goes down.”

Odessa says nothing while
following me into the kitchen. I know the tools I need are in the basement, and
I also know she might lock me inside. Unlike with the bedroom, I don’t know of
a secret exit.

I consider having her join me
in the basement so she can’t pull any tricks. Her expression makes me think she
wants to start trouble. Possibly, the change is beginning, and she hopes to
force me to kill her.

If that’s her plan, I figure we
best get it over with, so I leave her alone upstairs. I know I can break
through the door, but she doesn’t lock it. Odessa stands at the top of the
stairs and watches me the entire time. Rather than attempt to lock me inside, she
looks relieved when I return.

Or maybe she’s thinking
something completely different. While I’m not a robot, I do lack the skills to
read her well. I’d never needed more than a cursory understanding of human
emotions. My feelings remained stifled while the needs of others never
interested me. Now I have Odessa trailing me, and I can’t figure her out.

Odessa

Q
uill uses the plank from my
bedroom window to block the exit. I stand nearby and watch his back. He doesn’t
ask me to help. I don’t think he even wants me at his side. Quill says nothing
when I follow him outside. He rarely says anything, so I don’t take his silence
as a slight.

“Have you ever tried getting
the attention of the people in the sky?” I ask while he works.

“No doubt when they look up, they
see the real sky. Their world has the real sun while ours only has the
reflection of their sun. We don’t have the moon or stars to light our sky, so
our nights are pitch dark.”

“We could still try to contact
them.”

“What would be the point?”

“They could help us.”

“How?” he asks, setting the
plank against the house. “If you saw people in the sky, waving for help, how
exactly would you help them?”

“I don’t know. They could get
us help.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know what your problem
is, Odessa?”

“No, please share, Quill.”

Hearing my annoyed tone, he frowns
at me. “You react without thinking things through, and your instincts are
poor.”

“So I should do what instead?”

“Examine a situation carefully
before reacting. Your logic seems stronger than your instincts. Also, don’t
allow your emotions to control your decision-making.”

Crossing my arms, I’m irritated
by his arrogance. He might be smarter and stronger… Well, I guess, he gets to
be arrogant, but his words still sting.

“You said the highway ends in
darkness. What about going through the woods?”

“I tried that on the other side
of the highway. There’s no exit if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“What’s it like on the other
side of the highway?”

Quill stops working and glances
back at me. “More Death Dealers. They’ve created family units. Packs, I guess,
from a predator’s standpoint.”

“Why don’t they come to this
side of the highway?”

“They do. That’s why I set the
traps.”

I hear arrogance in his answer.
He’s pushed back the barbarians with his superior skills. I don’t blame him for
feeling pride in his abilities. They’ve kept us alive so far.

“Do the woods end the way the
highway does?”

Quill doesn’t answer
immediately. He’s examining his work on the plank.

“It’s a loop. On the first day,
I walked from morning to night. Then the next day, I noticed a familiar looking
tree with old markings in it. I added mine before walking the entire day again.
The next day, I passed the same tree. I realized I could walk a hundred years
through the same patch of woods.”

“So this place has borders.”

“I think of it as a cube.”

“When you were in the woods
overnight, did you see the wolves?”

“It was too dark to see them. I
heard them, though, but I didn’t know what they were. I climbed a tree every
night so they couldn’t reach me. They were gone in the morning.”

“I wonder if you slept in the
same tree every night.”

Quill frowns at me as if I’m
mocking him. I don’t know what he sees on my face, but he returns to his work.

“Were you scared when you spent
the night in the tree?”

“Fear is a physical reaction to
the mind. Control your thoughts and you won’t feel fear.”

I reach out and poke his
stubbled cheek. He frowns at me again. This time, he’s genuinely hostile.

“I’ve told you to stop touching
me.”

“I’m sorry. I was just
remarking at how lifelike you seem. You know, for a robot.”

Quill’s angry eyes lose their
emotion, and he cocks an eyebrow. “Tell me about the man you killed.”

His words are a punch in the
gut, just as he intended. I step back and think about John.

“He wasn’t as tall or muscular
as you, but he had beautiful blue eyes.”

Quill’s back faces me, and I
swear the muscles tense when I compliment John. Perhaps, my companion isn’t a
robot after all.

“He was my Dom, and I was his
sub. It began in the bedroom, but eventually, he controlled everything. I
didn’t want to choose. I didn’t want to be in charge.”

“That turned out well for you.”

Ignoring his malicious comment,
I think back to John. “I chose him because he was very dominant. He was also a
masochist, and I needed pain.”

“Do you still need it here?”

“Are you asking if you can
spank me?”

Quill doesn’t react, but I can
feel him rolling his eyes. I smile at the thought of his irritation.

“Something happened when I was
young, and pain helped me confront the anxiety from the incident.”

“Why are you talking like
that?”

“It’s how my therapist talked.”

“Did therapy help you?” he
asks, and I hear the amusement in his voice.

“No. She said I needed to learn
to forgive myself, but I didn’t want to. I want to feel the guilt every day.
The pain helped me deal with the guilt, but I never wanted the shame to leave
me.”

“Guilt for what?”

“I don’t want to talk about
it.”

Quill stands up and looks at
me. “I’m amazed you have an emotion or experience you don’t feel the need to
vomit on me.”

“If you want me to stop
speaking to you, just ask.”

“Like how I asked you not to
touch me?”

“In my defense, I’m accustomed
to human contact. It’ll take time for me to become a robot like you.”

“I don’t want to crush your
hopes, but I was like this long before I arrived in the Lost Highway.”

“Were you raised poorly?”

“I was trained to kill. I feel
like I repeat myself too often with you.”

Quill walks to the porch and
wipes his hands on his camouflage pants. Feeling scolded, I join him and remain
silent.

“When it warms up this way, a
severe thunderstorm is coming,” he says, looking upward. “These aren’t like the
one we had the other night. These storms are incredibly loud and shake
everything. You’ll want to prepare for that.”

While I nod at his warning,
Quill glances at me and then at the woods.

“Storms occur frequently. The
good thing about them is the wolves and Death Dealers hide, so we don’t need to
worry about them causing trouble. The downside is we can’t leave the cabin. Not
when the cold brings the fog or when the heat brings the thunderstorms.”

Nodding again, I watch the
woods in the same way he does. I see nothing except trees blocking my view of
everything past the clearing. Their line is a wall, trapping us into this area.

I see now how the Lost Highway
is a prison filled with smaller ones. This side of the highway becomes this
part of the woods becomes this clearing becomes the cabin until we are locked
away in the closet downstairs with barely enough room to move. Despite years of
therapy and too many recent near death experiences, I still believe this place
is the punishment I deserve.